


Laugh, head high, ‘cause it all works out

by noknockback



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Confessions, Fluff, Valentine's Day, akagi is such a sweetheart i love him so much, also this is purely self indulgent i am feeding Myself, he's the coolest ever i dare you to change my mind, kind of anyway, miya twins bickering in the background as usual, suna is a big Gay and has Feelings for his senpai
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:21:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23614402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noknockback/pseuds/noknockback
Summary: Suna confesses through chocolates and a letter.
Relationships: Akagi Michinari/Suna Rintarou, atsukita if u squint
Comments: 15
Kudos: 75





	Laugh, head high, ‘cause it all works out

**Author's Note:**

> i swear this was written for my boy akagi's birthday even though it is suna-centric,, it had to be to fit the plot
> 
> anyways STAN AKAGI FOR CLEAR SKIN and enjoy :D

Suna clutches the little package close to his chest, weaving through the sea of students in the hallway, all moving in opposing directions and making it hard to get through. Lunch had just started, so it’s impossible to avoid the usual rush of people outside the classrooms.

But going straight into that mass is definitely not a Suna like thing to do. He would have chosen to stay cooped up in his corner seat of the class, picking at the bento box his mother made for him that morning and giving the remains to Osamu, who would accept it gladly and wolf it down along with his own two bentos. 

He doesn’t like large gatherings of people, or people in general, really, so going out there during lunch is a brand new behaviour, never seen before by anyone.

Which is why trailing behind him is Osamu, mouth still stuffed with a mouthful of shrimp onigiri, wondering where his friend is planning on going this fine Tuesday afternoon. It’s unnerving, to say the least, especially with what he was going to do, but it would be more suspicious if he insisted on not being followed, so he has to just deal with it. 

And besides, he’s already come up with a lie that’s believable enough to fool Osamu, so it’s no big deal if he gets questioned.

Although, the question he’s got an answer to isn’t asked by the twin following him. Or — scrap that, it isn’t asked by the twin whom he  _ thought _ had been following him. 

Somehow along the way, Atsumu had joined their little choo choo train, tagging along beside Osamu, giving Suna that same curious look that a puppy would make at its owner bringing home a new toy or treat.

“What's that?” he asks, his stare directed at the package held in Suna’s hands. It’s a little rectangular box, wrapped in a pink paper with white polka dots and a name written at the corner in black permanent marker.

“Dumbass, it’s obviously chocolate.” Osamu almost chokes on his food when Atsumu stabs him in the side for that comment. Well, Suna can’t blame him, given today’s date and the whole wrapping of it, it is obviously chocolates. For  _ who _ should be the real question.

“Who’s it for,” Atsumu asks again, though there’s less of an inquisitive tone and more of a demanding one. “Is it for that pretty senpai in class 4, the one in track and field?” He tries peering at the name written, but Osamu elbows him to “stop getting in the way”, and oh, now they’re fighting.

“No, not her. It’s for Akagi-san,” Suna replies over their jests at each other, much too accustomed to their antics by now. A little heat spreads across his face as he reveals the recipient, his mind wandering to what his reaction would be upon opening it. “A girl asked me to give this to him because she was too shy to do it herself.”

“I didn’t see you talking to anyone just now,” Osamu muses absentmindedly. His breath catches in his throat for a split second, until he remembers that he had thought of a response to this question, too. 

“She came to me in the morning.”

“Oh.” 

“Secret admirer, eh? What a coward,” Atsumu sniffs disdainfully, having lost interest in the package already.

Suna huffs out a breath, annoyed at his response but relieved at the same time, because they’ve bought the bluff. Then again, it’s not like they could have guessed that the chocolates were actually from him, since he’s never once expressed his interest in anyone before. He opens his mouth to defend this made up girl, but Osamu speaks first.

“Says you,” is his remark, which, Suna realises, is directed at Atsumu’s comment. Now  _ this  _ has him angling his head to the side to catch a glimpse of the twins behind him. It’s faint, but Suna is sure that a blush is forming on Atsumu's cheeks at the sound of Osamu's words.

“Shut up, ‘Samu! Guys aren’t supposed to give chocolates on Valentine’s Day anyway!” He glares at the grey haired boy, who shrugs at him, feigning innocence. 

“Just saying,” he mutters.

“What are you guys talking about?” Suna already has an inkling to it — trust him to have enough blackmail on every single one of them to be able to notice patterns in their behavior and know so much — but he voices his question anyway, just to get another reaction out of Atsumu. 

The boy in question turns even redder, probably thinking about the subject of his affections, and claps a hand around Osamu’s mouth before he can utter a word. 

“No one!” He says loudly, hand tightening against his brother, who struggles to break free. “It’s no one!”

Osamu, unable to speak, makes a series of gestures in the air with his finger. Atsumu’s eyes widen as he realises what his brother is doing, grip loosening even more when he catches sight of Suna nodding his head understandingly. He shoves his brother away roughly, and Osamu just snorts at his flustered form. 

“Who’s the coward now,” he smirks, revelling in the contortion that is Atsumu’s embarrassed face.

“Shut up, you fucker… “

Again, Suna ignores the Dumb and Dumber behind him, having finally reached his destination. Now, to find his shoe locker...

The rows of lockers are arranged by classes, so he makes his way to the third years’ section and looks for class 6. 

_ Oh, to be an intellectual _ , he thinks wistfully, knowing all too well that would never be possible — Suna would rather stay in bed all day playing video games and analysing volleyball matches and sleeping than actually dedicating time to study. He could never last an hour of sitting down to focus on homework or revision without picking up his phone at least five times, just to scroll through his already refreshed social media feed.

He finds the locker quite easily, one of the first few located in the second row, the label that reads  _ Akagi Michinari _ indicating his locker. Suna recognises his shoes too, definitely  _ not _ because he watched the older every time he left practice with the other third years and took note of what shoes he wore.

And despite his smaller stature, the shoes he wears aren’t of a smaller than normal size at all. Actually, Suna’s pretty sure they’re almost the same size as the shoes he himself wears. Maybe it’s Suna’s feet that are small. Huh.

He slips the box into the empty space beside the pair of shoes, noticing how the locker is void of all other Valentines’ related items. 

_ What if he’s already dating someone? _

The thought brings a cold shiver down his back. Suna had entertained the idea before, but he never wanted to dwell on it for too long. He shakes his head and turns away from the lockers. 

_ No, he can’t be dating someone else. If he was, there’s no way I would have missed it. _

He blinks at the floor a couple more times to clear his mind, before turning back to the twins (who, unsurprisingly, are still bickering) and heading back to class.

* * *

Suna stolls into the club room just seconds before the chaos in the form of the Miya Twins enter. They’re arguing over the number of Valentines’ chocolates and confessions they received that day, not that Osamu actually cares, but he finds joy in riling up his brother. 

“Oh, speaking of Valentines’ chocolates, did you guys get any?” Aran asks, loud enough for everyone to hear but facing only the third years. Suna slides quietly to his locker and places his bag inside it, removing his gym clothes to change into. “Shinsuke?”

“I received quite a few. Almost everybody in class gave each other obligatory chocolates,” is Kita’s reply, his face betraying no signs of emotion. Suna’s pretty sure he hears Osamu whisper  _ see, you should’ve just given it to him _ in the background, but Kita speaks again. “I have some left, do you want some? I won’t be eating them all.”

“Shinsuke, these could be confession chocolates and you’re just giving them away?” The familiar lilt of Akagi’s voice calls out. 

“I rejected all the confessions. There’s no reason to keep the chocolate if I won’t be eating them.”

(Suna doesn’t even have to look to know that Atsumu’s face has fallen.)

He catches sight of Aran wincing in a silent apology to all the girls who thought they had a chance with  _ the _ Kita Shinsuke. “You can give some to me if you want… Michinari, did you get any?” He turns to their libero, Suna’s eyes following suit. 

He tries to keep his gaze casual and not reveal that he is, once again, admiring the features of the older. Especially his eyes, how their roundness curves up and ends in a point at their corners, making him seem more like a cat than anything. Suna  _ loves  _ cats _. _

“Yeah, the usual obligatory ones. Oh, but there was also one in my shoe locker.” 

His breath hitches.

“Oh? A confession?” Aran’s tone turns inquisitive. Suna wishes he could hide in his locker and stay in there forever, but there’s no backing out of this now. He’d just have to face it head-on. He’s been telling himself this for months, after all, so it was finally time something happened.

His gaze stays trained on Akagi, watching for a reaction.

Brown eyes suddenly dart to meet his gaze, lips curling into a cat-like smirk.

“Dunno, haven’t opened it yet.” The libero replies nonchalantly, shrugging off Aran’s attention. He says this, but Suna sees in the corner of his eye the boy leaning closer to him across his locker door. He swallows.

“Meet me after practice.” 

It comes in a short whisper, and Suna doesn’t have enough time to analyse the tone behind those words, for the older quickly jumps back into the conversation, now pestering Oomimi on his luck with chocolates. 

Suna feels warmth rush to his cheeks as he slouches towards the open and very welcoming space of inside his locker, pressing his now crumpled uniform shirt to his face and exhaling deeply. 

Akagi said he hadn’t opened it yet, so he wouldn’t have read the letter yet either. In that case, how did he know that it was from Suna? Perhaps Suna hasn’t been all that subtle about watching the other boy during practice all this while… 

The sound of Kita’s clapping that sounds throughout the room snaps him out of his thoughts, accompanied by a firm “Let’s go”, signalling the start of practice. Suna regains his composure and puts on a straight face, shutting his locker. 

Practice goes on as usual. Suna glances at Akagi a little more than he normally would, and every time he does, the other boy almost always looks back, eyes either already trained on him or immediately darting to catch his gaze. Though more often the latter, which makes him wonder how he can sense Suna’s eyes on him even when he’s facing away.

The meeting of their gazes also comes with the smiles, just a little curve of the lips, which somehow makes Suna’s breath catch every single time. It’s not like this is anything new, though — Akagi sends this same smile to everyone on the team in a gentle form of encouragement, so it’s not like Suna is getting special treatment or anything like that. 

Perhaps the smiles are  _ too _ kind, if they’re meant to serve as a reassurance that would be weird because there isn’t anything to reassure him of. Unless they are ones sent out of.. pity? 

Suna thinks hard. He hadn’t opened the box yet so he wouldn’t have read the letter, but anyone could tell that it was definitely a confession of some sort. No one would wrap chocolates so elaborately just to give it without any intentions. 

And Akagi’s smart, he’s in class six after all, so he probably has it all figured out by now. Asking to meet him after practice, glancing back at him,  _ smiling _ back at him… 

It’s has to be his way of preparing him for the worst to come later. Immediately after practice, because Akagi isn’t the type to go without confrontations nor leave people hanging, while the smiles are just a normal thing he always did. There’s nothing more to it. 

Suna normally wouldn’t let himself be so pessimistic but he just can’t help it. Better than setting himself up for disappointment, right? 

Whatever. Suna blinks twice to clear his mind and focus on the game in front of him. (It’s a wonder how he had managed to concentrate on blocking and spiking with all these thoughts running through his mind.) Everything would come to an end later, he just needs to get through these few hours first.

With his mind off the situation at hand, time seems to pass by much faster, practice ending in a blink of an eye. Suna hangs around the benches, hanging a towel around his neck to absorb the sweat and gulping down the contents of his water bottle. He wonders how they’re going to meet without the rest of the team being suspicious. 

He tells Osamu to go on first without him, saying that Akagi wanted to discuss something with him. 

“I think it’s about block-follow ups, he was talking to be about it the other day, too,” Suna adds on, trying to make it seem as normal as possible, since he rarely met any third years for anything. Thankfully, Osamu seems to believe his words, shrugging with an “okay” in response.

As Suna’s dragging his towel over his face in a shoddy attempt to feel cleaner, he hears the voice of Akagi shout out from somewhere behind him.

“Shinsuke! You need to leave early today, right? I’ll help you lock up!” He had definitely said that in a louder voice for him to hear, Suna thinks, because Kita is right beside him and answers in his usual tone, much softer than the exclamation made by Akagi. 

By “early”, he really meant at the usual time practice is supposed to end, since Kita always stayed at least half an hour longer to clean up the whole place before actually heading home. 

So that’s how he ends up lingering in the club room as the other members trickle out one by one. He’s pretty sure Aran had given him a look, probably shocked that he hadn’t immediately left with the twins and Ginjima just now, but he ignores it. 

His nerves are starting to get to him, again not a usual occurrence, but he doesn’t have time to dwell over that as Akagi steps in front of him.

“So,” he starts, holding up the pink box and glancing at Suna. “This is from you, right?”

God, how he wishes the floor would just open up to a bottomless ravine and engulf him up right now. But he’s already come this far, trying to deny it would just make everything even more awkward. He nods his head wordlessly, trying to keep his gaze steady.

“Okay, good, I wasn’t sure because I only saw you put it in my locker, but it could’ve been from anyone.” The shorter boy huffs a sigh of relief, his eyes crinkling into little slits that maybe makes Suna’s heart beat a little faster. “Do you want me to open it?”

He nods again, still silent. He watches in anticipation as Akagi unwraps the box, slender fingers slowly pulling at the tape so as not to ruin the packaging. Suna’s never had the chance to observe his hands before, so it’s only now that he realises his hands are more delicate than anything. Suna’s breath catches when he sees the letter being pulled out but makes to move to do anything.

Akagi unfolds the piece of paper, just a regular sheet ripped out from a notebook, nothing that elaborate. It feels like an eternity as he watches the older’s eyes scan through what’s written, the cold feeling of dread settling at the bottom of his stomach.

Suna doesn’t even remember what he had written. Is it something cheesy and dumb? He knows there’s definitely a bit on confessing his feelings for the boy, but is there more? He wants to pull at his hair in frustration, but controls himself and stays silent. 

He keeps his eyes trained on Akagi, waiting for him to finish reading the letter.  _ It isn’t  _ that  _ long _ , Suna thinks to himself, wondering why it’s taking the older so long to look back up. When he finally does meet Suna’s gaze again, though, his eyes are a b

His mouth twitches to say something, but Suna is faster.

“Akagi-san,” he begins slowly, bowing his head both in respect and to avoid looking at the other’s eyes. “I like you. Please go out with me.” 

It’s quiet, save for the sound of their breathing. Suna swallows yet again and keeps his eyes fixed on the floor, on his shoes, on Akagi’s shoes. The same pair that was in his locker just now. 

The same pair of shoes that are now less than a feet away from him.

_ When did he get so close? _

Ever so slowly, Suna raises his head to look at the boy in front of him.

And meeting his gaze is the somewhat amused, somewhat endearing look that Akagi’s shooting him, lips stretched into a lopsided grin as he regards the taller with warm brown eyes. 

“Of course,” Suna hears him say, his gaze softening upon realising that the boy in front of him is a total bundle of nerves. From an outsider’s perspective this would have been quite amusing, to see the shorter but strangely confident boy smiling up at the clearly embarrassed boy who’s still significantly taller than him despite the slouch of his shoulders.

Suna stares at him, unable to speak, from both confusion and being utterly overjoyed (his face does not betray this, however). Akagi notices this and laughs a little before explaining himself.

“I mean, I’ve always thought you were pretty as heck," a hand goes up to the back of his neck as he continues grinning at Suna. “And I’ve always been fascinated with you, since you’re always so quiet.”

The almond shape of his eyes crease into little smiling crescents. “So yeah, I’d love to go out with you.”

Suna… may have temporarily forgotten how to breathe. He’s also a hundred percent sure that his cheeks are flaming red right now — why wouldn’t they be, with all those looks that Akagi has been sending him? The smiles he’s been receiving are different from the ones that he usually gets, the ones that are meant for everybody on the team.

It’s just a subtle difference, but Suna pinpoints it on the look in his eyes. The cat-like curl of his lips are the same, but it’s his  _ eyes _ that are different. They seem to hold more warmth, crinkling a little more at the corners and conveying a stronger sense of endearment. 

Or that’s what he thinks, anyway. More seconds tick by, Suna wonders why none of them are saying anything until he realises with a jolt that Akagi must be waiting for him to respond but all he had been too caught up in admiring his features to remember to speak.

“So. Uh,”  _ Wow, what a  _ great _ way to start _ . Suna wants to be eaten by the floor again. “I guess we’re dating now?”

“Yeah, if you’re okay with it!” Suna nods his head in a silent  _ yes _ , biting back a smile. Akagi doesn’t miss this, however, and does the exactly opposite, letting a full blown grin spread across his face as he begins the conversation again.

“It’s my first time dating anyone so, if there’s anything that makes you uncomfortable, just let me know!” This finally gets Suna to relent and stop holding back his feelings, his features finally softening at Akagi’s immense consideration. 

“You can call me Rintarou.” The words come out softer than Suna had intended, but with just the two of them in the room it makes no difference. 

Akagi hears it perfectly and in return declares, “Then you can call me Michinari, too! But are you okay with doing it in front of the team? Or do you want to hide this from them?”

Suna takes a split second to mull over this and realises that honestly, he couldn’t give two shits about what the team thought. Not even the twins, because this way he has something to hold over Atsumu. Osamu might tease him about it, but it would last a week at most, and he could live with that.

“Doesn’t matter,” he slurs out, which elicits a snort of laughter out of Akagi.

_ Definitely could get used to hearing that more _ .

The conversation dies off, and the dense fog of awkwardness returns to settle over the two of them yet again. Suna doesn’t know what’s supposed to happen now. He confessed, they talked, now they’re together. And then what?

A sharp exhale of breath catches his attention; Akagi’s bent over slightly with an amused expression on his face, eyes squeezed shut into little curves. Suna tilts his head and looks at him questioningly. Not that he can see him, though.

“I would love to kiss you right now,” he finally says, sending yet another wave of heat straight to the taller’s cheeks, “but we’re both really sweaty and gross, so I think it’ll have to wait for another time.” He looks up at Suna and grins sheepishly at him, his own face flushed pink as well.

Suna hums thoughtfully.

“We could hang out tomorrow, before morning practice,” he suggests bashfully, already imagining how pleasant it would be, to sit on the steps outside the gym and enjoy the cool spring morning breeze, shoulders pressed against each other as they conversed in hushed voices.

Akagi seems to have this same vision, too, because his eyes light up at the proposal. 

“Yeah,” he breathes, yet another crescent-eyed smile forming on his face. “I’d love that.”

**Author's Note:**

> when osamu makes a gesture, he's actually writing the kanji for kita's name (北) to tell suna who atsumu was talking about  
> hope you enjoyed this super self indulgent piece lmao  
> thanks for reading!! <3


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